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Urbi et Orbi message of his holiness pope Benedict XVI

The Pope delivers his Easter Day message

From the depths of my heart, I wish all of you a blessed Easter. To quote Saint Augustine, “Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra – the resurrection of the Lord is our hope” (Sermon 261:1). With these words, the great Bishop explained to the faithful that Jesus rose again so that we, though destined to die, should not despair, worrying that with death life is completely finished; Christ is risen to give us hope (cf. ibid.).

Pope Benedict XVI today urged mankind to fight “a peaceful battle” to “rediscover grounds for hope” despite disasters such as the Abruzzo earthquake, food shortages, financial turmoil, climate change and “the ever-present threat of terrorism.”

Wishing pilgrims a Happy Easter in 63 languages, he said in Italian that his thoughts were in particular with “those who suffered because of the earthquake”. He said he hoped survivors would find the “wisdom and courage” to unite in the construction of a future “open to hope”.

Earlier, in his Easter Day message “urbi et orbi” (to the city and the world), the Pope said that the Resurrection was “not a fairytale” and attacked the “emptiness” of materialism and atheism. He said that thanks to the Resurrection of Christ “death no longer has power over man”.

“Even if through Easter, Christ has destroyed the root of Evil, He still wants the assistance of men and women in every time and place who help him to affirm His victory using His own weapons: the weapons of justice and truth, mercy, forgiveness and love,” the Pope said after Easter Sunday mass on a packed and flower-bedecked St Peter's Square.

Dressed in gold vestments, he stumbled as he entered the balcony of St Peter's Basilica above the square but swiftly recovered with help from aides. He said he had conveyed the same message of the battle for justice and truth on his recent trip to Africa, “where I was welcomed with such great enthusiasm and readiness to listen.” frica suffered disproportionately from “cruel and unending conflicts, often forgotten” which caused bloodshed, destruction, hunger, poverty and disease, he said.

Pope Benedict said he would carry the same message “emphatically” to the Holy Land on his trip there next month. “Reconciliation - difficult but indispensable - is a precondition for a future of overall security and peaceful co-existence,” the pontiff said, adding that this could only be achieved through “renewed, persevering and sincere efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”.

He said his thoughts moved from the Middle East to the whole world. “At a time of world food shortage, of financial turmoil, of old and new forms of poverty, of disturbing climate change, of violence and deprivation which force many to leave their homelands in search of a less precarious form of existence, of the ever present threat of terrorism, of growing fears over the future, it is urgent to rediscover grounds for hope”.

He added: “Let no-one draw back from this peaceful battle that has been launched by Christ's Resurrection”.

He said that Easter raises “one of the questions that most precoccupies men and women: what is there after death? To this mystery today's solemnity allows us to respond that death does not have the last word, because life will be victorious at the end.”

Easter Day masses were also held in the tent cities in Abruzzo housing those left homeless after the massive earthquake a week ago. The Pope sent 500 Easter eggs for children in the camps, and the regional authorities and the Red Cross distributed lamb dishes to the evacuees for Easter Day lunch. Police said the death toll had risen to 293 while about 40,000 people were left homeless.

The search for further survivors has been called off, and Civil Protection officials said all those missing had now been accounted for. Around 24,000 survivors are living in emergency camps and some 15,000 have been given shelter in hotels on the nearby Adriatic coast. Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister, who has visited the stricken area every day to supervise rescue efforts, attended one of the Easter Sunday masses at L'Aquila.

The Italian government declared Good Friday a day of national mourning and a mass funeral with over 2,000 coffins was held at a barracks just outside L'Aquila. The European Union has announced it is to send technical experts to Italy this week to help assess the stability of buildings damaged by the strong earthquake. Prosecutors have opened an inquiry into whether building standards were breached by Abruzzo construction firms.